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Wednesday, November 3, 2010

on coffee, spas, and nature baskets

It is one of those days again. It seems like I have a lot of those? Or maybe those are the ones where I really NEED to write, to purge myself so to speak?

Perhaps.

In any case.

As I tend to do, I basked in the sunlight drinking my coffee this morning and found myself fantasizing about what many a tired mommy fantasizes over (no, NOT Mr. Jolie-Pitt).

A spa.

Hmmm. Mud masks. Massages. Maybe some nice relaxing yoga. Lunch of healthy soup and a crisp salad.
Followed by chocolate crème brulee. With a glass of wine. Then an afternoon of basking in the sunshine of a garden, drinking herbal tea, and reading (this damn book that I need to finish so I get more sleep and stop having weird dreams.)

Ah.

Please God? Please?

HA HA.

And I wake up. And the kids are dumping toys all over the living room. And I sigh. And I pick it up. And sweep. And take a shower. And reheat the leftover coffee. And plug the kids into Blues Clues. And fire up the laptop.

Purge away, right?

Lucky you. (Insert winky face guy)

So, I figured, to be nice and inspiring, I would share this idea I have read elsewhere (Beyond the Rainbow Bridge) which is a cozy, educational, homey thing to write about and therefore gets me to stop whining about spas and the like.

Nature collection baskets.


miss snot-nose sorts acorns, rocks, and pinecones. ok, fine mostly
she is dumping them on the ground and picking them up again.
but still. fun. nice. pretty.
And really, it is the perfect time of year to start this up.

I found some baskets (obtained in Brazil in a prior life, was used to organize my work space but, let’s face it, I really don’t need a basket for the years worth of business cards I have, once essential, now irrelevant.) So I dump the contents out all over my dust-covered desk and repurpose them for the children. Kind scary how much of this has been going on lately. HA.


We started in September with a collection of acorns. We added some polished rounds of wood. Some pretty smooth rocks. Recently some pinecones. Then a blue jay feather.

You get the idea.

brother gets in on the action
I love to watch how the kids interact with nature. And with this they start looking for the little treasures (no, we can’t add the wooly caterpillar.) And as you walk or play in the yard you start to notice pretty rocks and interesting pieces of wood.

Plus, it’s pretty to have this collection lying around, as opposed to your son’s collection of Happy Meal Super Hero toys. (Brings such a lovely aesthetic to a room, no?)

Little miss LOVES to carry the baskets to the middle of the room, dump them out, throw it on the floor, pick it up again, sort acorns from the rocks in different baskets, and occasionally pop acorns into her mouth and tell me she is a “ ‘quirrel. ” (“You are not a squirrel missy. Give it to mama. Spit it out.” I say this at least 10 times a day.)

So. A nice idea, right?

Happy November!

2 comments:

  1. that is a great idea! I may need to start this. My kids have a thing for rocks--they are everywhere in our house. I try to get them to keep a "collection box" in their rooms, but we may need to go to one rock box. (Though ownership battles may commence.) Plus this may help Daniel's fascination for leaves--he brings them in by the handful, and they inevitably end up crumbled and ground into the carpet. I love nature, but not when it makes me have to vacuum more than absolutely necessary!

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  2. totally agree with the leaves. we added some at one point but mommy quickly removed them once the crumbled pieces started showing up all over the place!

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